Existence of God
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The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and theology. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God can be categorized as logical, empirical, metap
Ibn Rushd, a 12th-century Islamic scholar
Alvin Plantinga in 2004
Ontological argument
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In the philosophy of religion, an ontological argument is a deductive philosophical argument, made from an ontological basis, that is advanced in support of the existence of God. Such arguments tend t
Existence of God
…would be categorized as cosmological arguments. Other arguments for the existence of God have been proposed by St. Anselm, who formulated the first ontological argument; Thomas Aquinas, who presented his own version of the cosmological argument (the first way); René Descartes, who said that the existence of a benevolent…
Anselm of Canterbury, who formulated the ontological argument in his 1078 work Proslogion. An illuminated archbishop—presumably Anselm—from a 12th-century edition of his Meditations. (MS Auct. D2. 6)
Ibn Sina (Avicenna), whose "Proof of the Truthful" (11th century) predated Anselm's ontological framework. It is recognized for its systematic logical derivation of the "Necessary Existent" (Wajib al-Wujud) from the concepts of contingency and necessity.
Anselm of Canterbury was the first to attempt an ontological argument for God's existence.
French thinker René Descartes proposed several arguments that could be termed ontological.